2014 National Football League schedule with TV info

This is as complex and tentative a National Football League schedule as you’ll find.

The NFL released its 2014 regular-season schedule tonight, but don’t set your VCRs yet. The league extended its flex scheduling so that NBC can change its Sunday night selections as early as Week 5. The network can exercise its flex option only twice between Weeks 5 and 10, but can employ it every week if it wants between Weeks 11 and 16.

CBS essentially has the AFC package of games and Fox the NFC, but those strings have been loosened. Usually the visiting team’s conference determined the network carrier, but that isn’t always the case. In fact, one doubleheader game on CBS is schedule between two NFC teams: Week 12’s Washington at San Francisco.

The Thanksgiving Day games feature three NFC divisional rivalries, meaning again that CBS will televise an all-NFC game when it airs Chicago at Detroit in the opener.

Local affiliates also will be affected by the altered philosophy of the NFL. For instance, all four of the Buffalo Bills’ inter-conference games will be produced by Fox, which may be a good thing for Capital Region fans of that team. If the Giants aren’t on at the same time, the Bills would be a viable play for local station WXXA (Fox-23).

The Jets will have only one Fox game, in Week 4 at home against the Lions. A Week 3 home game against the Bears that might normally be on Fox has been made into a Monday night telecast on ESPN.

The NFL also reserves the right to switch games from one network to another to provide the best possible matchup for the 4:25 p.m. Sunday slot.

There’s also a stronger Thursday night schedule — 14 of the 17 matchups are intradivision — now that CBS has joined the fray. CBS and the NFL Network will co-exist as the Thursday night carrier in Weeks 2-8. NFL Network has exclusive coverage in Weeks 9-12 and 14-16 (NBC has the Thursday night game on Thanksgiving).

Plus two Week 16 Saturday games have been added — one on NFL Network (4:30 p.m.) and the other on CBS (8 p.m.) — although the NFL didn’t determined which game will be shown when. The presumption is that CBS will get the “better” game in prime time.

Here is the schedule, of course, subject to change (all times Eastern):